Civil society - a set of organizations of citizens, designed to control the state in its observance of the social contract. The concept of "civil society" was developed by European philosophers G. Leibniz, T. Hobbes, J. Locke, C. Montesquieu, T. Payne, K. Marx and others during the 17th - 19th centuries. As a result, several features were identified that characterize civil society

• The presence of many associations, organizations of citizens, including political parties
• The relative independence of these organizations from the central government
• Sense of civic responsibility of the people
• civilized behavior
• Active citizenship

What is a "social contract"?

A social contract is an agreement between citizens and the state about their rights and obligations. The people, who, according to the authors of the theory of the Social Contract, Hobbes, Locke, Diderot, Rousseau and others, are the highest power in the country, delegate certain powers to the state, undertake to comply with the laws established by the state, but, in turn, have the right to observe, control and influence the activity states.
The meaning of concluding an agreement between society and the state is the acquisition by citizens of guarantees for the security of themselves and their property, backed up by the power and authority of the state. The terms of the social contract cannot be violated either by the authorities or by the population without the risk of plunging society either into tyranny or anarchy.

The social contract is not a certain paper with signatures and seals, but such a structure of society, when the people and the authorities are partners in building a comfortable, safe, calm, free life for people

Theories of the contract between society and the state were developed by thinkers of the Enlightenment. In practice, they were put into practice by the US Declaration of Independence, created by T. Jefferson and adopted at the Second Continental Congress in 1776: “We hold the following truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, governments have been instituted among the people, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed. If, however, a given form of government becomes disastrous for this purpose, then the people have the right to change or destroy it and establish a new government based on such principles and with such an organization of power as, in the opinion of this people, can most contribute to its security and happiness.

“To secure these rights, governments have been established among the people, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed”

Conditions for the existence of "civil society"

• Market economy
• A high sense of responsibility of citizens for themselves and their families
• High consciousness, allowing you to comply with the laws of the hostel without coercion
• The existence in society of state-guaranteed rights and freedoms of the individual: freedom of speech, press, rallies, meetings
• Availability of independent media
• The existence of the right of citizens to choose public authorities, control their work, change them if they are dissatisfied with it

Elements of "civil society" in Russia

• Economics of market relations
• Existence of political parties
• The presence of non-political organizations of citizens:
  - professional,
  - sports,
  - national cultural,
  - confessional
• Availability of independent media

Civil society, the concept, features, the structure of which will be described in detail in the article, is considered the main pillar of any real democracy. It acts as a guarantee of its strengthening and preservation, contributing to its formation. The main opponent of development in the state of totalitarianism is precisely the civil of this formation? How is its activity manifested? More on this later.

General information

Civil society is called upon to protect society from various abuses of power. It contributes to the limitation of corruption, hinders In Russia, the structure and functions of civil society today are just beginning to take shape. This is manifested primarily by the proclamation of the freedoms and rights of the individual as the highest value of society, which determines the content and meaning of the activities of government bodies. Among the prerequisites, as a result of which the structure of civil society began to take shape, we can briefly name the following:

• The emergence of a multi-party system.
• Development of market relations.
• Implementation of the principle of separation of powers.

A more extensive influence of civil society on the activities of the state is hindered by the bureaucratic system.

Education

Civil society - the concept, features, structure of this form of organization of people - passed a fairly long period of formation in the course of historical development. As a result, it has become a powerful social entity. Civil society began to function not only as an exclusively state, but also as a social structure. In the transition to market relations, a significant property stratification of education occurs. This period is characterized by an increase in social, including interethnic, conflicts. All these factors have a negative impact on the process of formation and development of civil society. Today, issues of ensuring the social security of people, the implementation of the principles of justice in public administration are coming to the fore.

The concept and essence of civil society

Today, the definition has been significantly enriched in content and is considered to be very ambiguous. In a general sense, it provides for the highest structure of civil society includes individuals, institutions and groups. All of them are not directly related to political state. Also, the structure of civil society can be briefly considered as an association in which there are developed cultural, legal, political, economic relationships between the individuals that form it. These connections are not mediated by the state.

Characteristic

The concept and essence of civil society can be considered from two points of view. In accordance with the first, this form of organization is a complex of interpersonal relations, and in this case, the structure of civil society includes the economy, culture, education, family, religion, and so on. The participation of the state is not envisaged in the development of these relations. Due to this complex of interactions, the satisfaction of social groups and individuals of their own interests and needs is ensured. The concept of civil society in philosophy suggests an ideal model for the formation of a formation. According to this view, social education consists of sovereign free individuals. At the same time, they must have the broadest socio-economic, political, cultural and other rights, actively participate in public administration and freely satisfy the most diverse individual needs.

Principles

They ensure the vital activity of civil society. The main principles include:

• Equality of freedoms and rights of all people.
• Economic independence of individuals.
• Guaranteed legal protection of freedoms and human rights.
• Freedom of the population in the formation of movements and parties.
• Legally guaranteed opportunity for people to form independent associations based on professional characteristics and interests.
• Providing the necessary conditions, including material ones, for the development of culture, education of the population, science, education and other things.
• The existence of a stabilizing mechanism that ensures the safety of relations between society and the state, as well as the security of the former.
• Freedom of education and media activity.

What are the characteristics of civil society? What are the main features of this form of organization

An essential feature of this complex is the ability to control and resist the state. There are many periods in history in which civil society triumphed over power. The essence and structure of formation can be in different states. For example, in the East this complex as a whole is considered "amorphous", but the state has unlimited possibilities and power, penetrating into all spheres of life. As for Russia, here the state, as a rule, won and subjugated civil society. The essence and structure of the complex are constantly under pressure from the authorities. A striking example is the 70-year period of totalitarianism in the country. As a result, historical development has practically come to a standstill. AT modern Russia civil society began to be viewed from a different angle. Interest arose in him as a political ideal. A sign of civil society is also the desire to ensure the freedom and rights of the individual, to resist authoritarian manifestations of power. This form of organization, among other things, can take over part of the state tasks that the latter cannot fulfill. However, there is a certain dependence of civil society on the authorities. Its degree depends on the ability of the uniting people to satisfy their needs on their own, without turning to the state for help.

Other features

Other features of civil society include:

• Developed legal, cultural, political, economic relationships between individuals.
• The ability to control the state.
• Existence of mechanisms of self-regulation and self-control.
• Pluralistic character. It manifests itself in a variety of parties, forms of ownership, and so on.
• Lack of human bondage. In a society, interacting people are considered its foundation.
• The development and diversity of the structure, which reflects the various interests of layers and groups, the branching of democracy.
• A high degree of psychological, intellectual development of people, the ability for independent activity when attracted to one or another institution of the complex.
• Law enforcement.

Within the framework of civil society, the freedoms and rights of its members are most fully ensured. There is also competition between groups in the complex. In a healthy society, its members freely form their own opinions, are well-informed, and have a real right to information. The vital activity of the complex is based on the coordination principle. This society differs from the state apparatus. In it, interactions occur on the principle of subordination, strict subordination.

The constituent elements of the complex

Civil society has a special structure. Its components - institutions and formations - provide conditions for meeting the needs and realizing the interests of teams and individuals. They are able to exert the necessary pressure on the government, forcing it to serve the benefit of the population. Structure - internal arrangement - reflects the interaction and diversity of components. It provides dynamism and integrity of development. As a system-forming beginning, generating strong-willed and intellectual energy in a complex, a person, in fact, with characteristic natural interests and needs, acts. Their external expression is contained in the duties and rights enshrined in law. The elements of the structure are considered to be various associations and communities of people, as well as stable relations between them. In the complex, there are vertical ones and the foundation of the latter are various interactions that appear in the process of ensuring social life. First of all, economic relations should be attributed to them. They are based on the guarantee and variety of forms of ownership. This is considered a fundamental condition for personal freedom in both civil and other society. Sociocultural relations are also developed within the system. These include ethnic, family-related, religious and other stable ties.

social contours

The foundation of civil society can only be a diverse, ramified social structure. It reflects all the diversity and richness of the interests of members of groups and representatives of strata. A significant role in the formation of social contours belongs to cultural pluralism. It includes all components of spiritual life, provides equality with the participation of all individuals in creative activity. In the upper layer of society there are relationships that are associated with personal choice, political and cultural differences of interest groups.

Details Updated: June 18, 2016

Topic 13. Civil society

1. Definition of civil society

1.1. The concept of civil society

The most important prerequisite and at the same time a factor in the formation political system democratic type is the presence of civil society. Civil society characterizes the whole set of various forms of social activity of the population, not due to the activities of state bodies and embodying the real level of self-organization of society. The state of social ties and relations described by the concept of "civil society" is a qualitative indicator of the civil self-activity of the inhabitants of a particular country, the main criterion for separating the functions of the state and society in the social sphere.

Real freedom of the individual becomes possible in a society of genuine democracy, where not the state, but political power dominates society and its members, and society has unconditional primacy in relation to the state. The transition to such a society is a historically long process, and it is associated with the formation of a civil society.

Between the concept of “civil society” and the concept of “society” of the same order, there is not only an obvious relationship, but also very significant differences. Society as a set of relations between people becomes civil only at a certain stage of its development of maturity, under certain conditions. In this regard, behind the adjective "civilian", despite some of its vagueness, there is a very specific and very capacious content. The category of civil society reflects a new qualitative state of society, based on the developed forms of its self-organization and self-regulation, on the optimal combination of public (state-public) and private (individual-personal) interests, with the determining value of the latter and with unconditional recognition as the highest value of such a society of man, his rights and freedoms. Therefore, civil society is opposed not just by a “non-civil” society, that is, a society that does not have the qualities of a civil society, but by a society of violence, suppression of the individual, state total control over the public and private lives of its members.

The term "civil society" itself is used in both broad and narrow senses. In a broad sense, civil society includes all the part of society that is not directly covered by the state, its structures, i.e. something that the state "does not reach the hands of". It arises and changes in the course of natural-historical development as an autonomous sphere, directly independent of the state. Civil society in a broad sense is compatible not only with democracy, but also with authoritarianism, and only totalitarianism means its complete, and more often partial absorption by political power.

Civil society in a narrow, proper sense is inextricably linked with the rule of law, they do not exist without each other. Civil society is a variety of relationships not mediated by the state of free and equal individuals in a market and democratic legal statehood. This is the sphere of free play of private interests and individualism. Civil society is a product of the bourgeois era and is formed mainly from below, spontaneously, as a result of the emancipation of individuals, their transformation from subjects of the state into free citizens-owners with a sense of personal dignity and ready to take on economic and political responsibility .

Civil society has a complex structure, including economic, economic, family-related, ethnic, religious and legal relations, morality, as well as political relations not mediated by the state between individuals as primary subjects of power, parties, interest groups, etc. In civil society, unlike state structures, not vertical (subordination), but horizontal ties prevail - relations of competition and solidarity between legally free and equal partners.

For a modern understanding of civil society, it is not enough to think about it only from the standpoint of its opposition to state power and, accordingly, to the sphere of realization of public interests. The main thing in the modern, general democratic concept of civil society should be the definition of its own qualitative characteristics of those real social relations that, in systemic unity, can be defined as a modern civil society.

Civil society is not just some kind of voluminous concept that characterizes a certain sphere of social relations, the limits of which are determined only by the fact that this is “the area of ​​private interests” (Hegel). At the same time, “civil society” is neither a legal, nor a state-legal concept. The state cannot, is not in a position to “establish”, “decree”, “establish” by its laws the image of civil society that it desires.

Civil society is a natural stage, the highest form of self-realization of individuals. It matures with the economic and political development of the country, the growth of well-being, culture and self-awareness of the people. As a product of the historical development of mankind, civil society appears in the period of breaking the rigid framework of the estate-feudal system, the beginning of the formation of a legal state. A prerequisite for the emergence of a civil society is the emergence of opportunities for all citizens of economic independence on the basis of private property. The most important prerequisite for the formation of civil society is the elimination of class privileges and the increase in the importance of the human person, a person who turns from a subject into a citizen with equal legal rights with all other citizens. The political foundation of civil society is the rule of law, which ensures the rights and freedoms of the individual. Under these conditions, a person's behavior is determined by his own interests and he is responsible for all actions. Such a person places his own freedom above all else, while at the same time respecting the legitimate interests of other people.

Since a lot of power is concentrated in the hands of the state, it can easily suppress the interests of social groups, classes and the whole people with the help of officials, the army, the police, the courts. The history of the establishment of fascism in Germany and Italy is a prime example how the state absorbs society, how the statehood of its spheres takes place, universal (total) control over the individual is exercised.

In this regard, civil society is an objectively established order of real social relations, which is based on the requirements of justice and the measure of achieved freedom, the inadmissibility of arbitrariness and violence, recognized by society itself. This order is formed on the basis of the internal content of these relations, which turns them into a criterion of "justice and measure of freedom." Thus, the relations that make up civil society acquire the ability to carry certain requirements, normative models of behavior of citizens, officials, state bodies and the state as a whole in accordance with the ideals of justice and freedom.

This means that in the relations that make up civil society, the ideas of law are embodied as the highest justice, based on the inadmissibility of arbitrariness and guaranteeing an equal measure of freedom for all members of civil society. These are the normative (obligatory) requirements that develop and exist in civil society, regardless of their state recognition and enshrined in laws. But following them on the part of the state is a guarantee that the law in such a society and state acquires a legal character, i.e. they not only embody the state will, but this will fully meets the requirements of justice and freedom.

The daily life of individuals, its primary forms constitute the sphere of civil society.However, the diversity of everyday needs and the primary forms of their implementation requires the coordination and integration of the aspirations of individuals and social groups in order to maintain the integrity and progress of the whole society. Balance, the relationship of public, group and individual interests is carried out by the state through managerial functions. Consequently, the global society, that is, the all-encompassing human community, consists of civil society and the state.

Civil society and the state are social universals, ideal types that reflect the various aspects and conditions of the life of society that oppose each other.

Civil society is the sphere of absolute freedom of individuals in relations with each other. By definition J-L. Kermonne, "civil society is composed of a plurality of interpersonal relationships and social forces that unite the men and women that make up this society without direct intervention and assistance from the state."

Civil society appears as a social, economic, cultural space in which free individuals interact, realizing private interests and making individual choices. On the contrary, the state is a space of totally regulated relationships between politically organized subjects: state structures and political parties adjoining them, pressure groups, etc. Civil society and the state complement each other. Without a mature civil society, it is impossible to build a legal democratic state, since it is conscious free citizens who are capable of rationally organizing human society. Thus, if civil society acts as a strong mediating link between a free individual and a centralized state will, then the state is called upon to counteract disintegration, chaos, crisis and decline by creating conditions for the realization of the rights and freedoms of an autonomous individual.

1.2. Scientific concepts of civil society.

The idea of ​​civil society is one of the most important political ideas of modern times. Arising in the middle of X VII in. in Europe, the concept of "civil society" has undergone a certain evolution, giving rise to several concepts and interpretations. However, it is invariably considered in opposition to the concept of "state".

Liberal interpretation of civil society goes back to the time of T. Hobbes and J. Locke. The concept of "civil society" was introduced by them to reflect the historical development of human society, the transition of man from natural to civilized existence. A person in a “wild”, “natural” state, who knows neither civilization nor a state, develops in the chaos of general mutual enmity and continuous wars. The natural, pre-state state of society is opposed to the civilized, socio-political, personifying order and civil relations.

The natural beginning of society and human life is not nature and the unbridled natural passions of a person, but civilization, that is, the exceptional ability of a person to consciously unite with his own kind for living together. Civil society was recognized as a condition for satisfying basic human needs for food, clothing, housing. Civil society appeared as a result of processes of differentiation and emancipation of various spheres public life(economic, social, cultural), within which the daily needs of the individual are satisfied.

The formation of independent spheres of social life reflected the processes of the increasing diversity of the activities of individuals and the complication of social relations. The diversity of social relations was a consequence of the formation of an autonomous personality, independent of power and possessing such a level of civic consciousness that allowed her to build her relationships with other individuals reasonably and expediently. According to J. Locke, the process of crystallization of an independent individual is based on private property. It is an economic guarantee of his freedom and political independence.

Relations between the state and civil society were built on a contractual basis. In essence, these relations were civilized, since the state and civil society together created the conditions for satisfying basic human needs and ensuring the livelihoods of individuals. The state protects the inalienable rights of citizens and, with the help of power, limits natural enmity, removes fear and anxiety for relatives and friends, for their wealth; and civil society restrains the desire of power to dominate.

Another tradition is the approach of G. Hegel, who considered civil society as a set of individuals who satisfy their daily needs with the help of labor. The basis of civil society is private property. However, according to G. Hegel, it was not civil society that was the driving force of progress, but the state. The primacy of the state in relation to civil society was due to the fact that, according to G. Hegel, the basis for the development of everything and everyone is the "World Spirit", or "Absolute Idea". Civil society was the “other being” of the spirit-idea, namely the state personified all the virtues and was the most perfect embodiment of the world's self-developing idea, the most powerful manifestation of the human personality, the universality of the political, material and spiritual principles.

The state protected a person from accidents, ensured justice and realized the universality of interests. Civil society and the individual were subordinate to the state, because it is the state that integrates individual groups and individuals into an organic whole, setting the meaning of their life. The danger of the existence of an all-embracing state lies in the fact that it absorbs civil society and does not seek to guarantee citizens their rights and freedoms.

Rejecting G. Hegel's thesis about the primacy of the state in relation to civil society, K. Marx considered the latter to be the foundation of a global society, and the vital activity of individuals as a decisive factor in historical development. This followed from the materialistic understanding of history, according to which the evolution of society is the result of the evolution of the material conditions of life. Civil society is a set of material relations of individuals. K. Marx considered civil society as a social organization that develops directly from production and circulation. The totality of economic, production relations of individuals (that is, the relations that individuals enter into among themselves in the process of production) and the productive forces corresponding to them (means of production and labor) constitute the basis. The economic basis determines the superstructure, political institutions (including the state), law, morality, religion, art, etc. The state and politics are a reflection of production relations.

Following the thesis about the dependence of the superstructure on the basis, K. Marx considered the state an instrument of political domination of a class that owns the means of production. Consequently, the bourgeois state is, according to K. Marx, a mechanism for the implementation and protection of the interests of the economically dominant class-owner, including industrialists, entrepreneurs, financiers, landowners. In such a state, only the propertied classes and social groups are citizens. The bourgeois state, realizing the will of the economically dominant class, hinders the free development of autonomous individuals, absorbs or excessively regulates civil society. Consequently, the relationship between the state and civil society is not equal and contractual.

K. Marx saw the possibility of overcoming the gap between civil society and the state under capitalism in the creation of a new type of society - a communist society without a state, where the individual and personal principles will completely dissolve in the collective.

The hopes of K. Marx that the proletarian state would create conditions for the development of associations of free citizens turned out to be unrealizable. In practice, the socialist state subordinated public property to itself and deprived civil society of its economic basis. On the basis of state property, a new political class arose - the party nomenklatura, which was not interested in the formation of an autonomous and free personality, and, consequently, a mature civil society.

Analyzing the consequences of the implementation of the Marxist doctrine in Russia, which led to the establishment of a totalitarian regime and the destruction of the germs of civil society, A. Gramsci defended the idea of ​​the hegemony of civil society. By the latter, he understood everything that is not a state. In the conditions of a mature civil society, as it was in the West, the process of social reorganization should begin not with a political revolution, but with the achievement of hegemony by the advanced forces within civil society. This statement of A. Gramsci follows from his definition of the independent role of the superstructure as an essential factor in historical development.

Considering the process of formation of civil society in the West, A. Gramsci drew attention to the great importance of ideology and culture in establishing the political dominance of the bourgeoisie. By establishing intellectual and moral dominance over society, it forced other classes and groups to adopt their values ​​and ideology. Of particular importance in the superstructure, according to Gramsci, belongs to civil society, which is closely connected with ideology (science, art, religion, law) and the institutions that create and distribute it (political parties, church, mass media, school etc.). Civil society, like the state, serves the ruling class in strengthening its power.

The relationship between the state and civil society depends on the maturity of the latter: if civil society is vague and primitive, then the state is its “external form”. The state can destroy civil society and act as the only instrument of power. And only in the conditions of a mature civil society, as in the West, does its relationship with the state have a balanced character. In the latter case, according to A. Gramsci, the state should be understood as the “private apparatus” of the “hegemony” of civil society.

Consequently, the analysis of the concepts of civil society allows us to draw a number of conclusions.

Firstly, for a long time in political science the concepts of "state" and "civil society" did not differ, they were used as synonyms. However, since the middle of X VII c., the processes of differentiation of various spheres of society, their liberation from all-encompassing state power, the isolation of an autonomous and independent individual with inalienable rights and freedoms actualized the search for a balanced representation of two trends in historical development: on the one hand, the aspirations of the individual to autonomy and freedom and, as a result, the growth of spontaneity and spontaneity in social development, which in political science reflected the concept of "civil society", and on the other hand, the need for streamlining, integrity, neutralization of conflicts in ever-complicating combinations social interactions, which reflected the concept of "state". Most often, the state and civil society were opposed to each other.

Secondly, civil society (basically bourgeois) is replacing the traditional, feudal society. In Western political science, with all its variations, two interpretations of civil society dominate. The first one considers civil society as a social universal, denoting the space of interpersonal relations that oppose the state in any of its forms. As a sphere for the realization of the daily needs of individuals, civil society includes the entire historical complex of interactions between individuals with each other.

In the second interpretation, civil society appears as a phenomenon of Western culture, as a specific historical form of existence of Western civilization. A feature of Western culture is its amazing adaptability to changing conditions and increased survival in a foreign cultural environment. The uniqueness of civilization is due to the balance of three forces: separate institutions of power, civil society and an autonomous individual. As the basis for the balanced interaction of these forces, the idea of ​​progress was recognized, expressed in the orientation of consciousness towards the constant improvement of man, civil society and the state.

Thirdly, modern political science interpretation considers civil society as a complex and multi-level system of non-power relations and structures. Civil society includes the entire set of interpersonal relations that develop outside the framework and without the intervention of the state, as well as an extensive system of public institutions independent of the state that implement everyday individual and collective needs. Since the everyday interests of citizens are unequal, the spheres of civil society also have a certain subordination, which can be conditionally expressed as follows: basic human needs for food, clothing, housing, etc. satisfy production relations that make up the first level of interpersonal relationships. They are implemented through such public institutions as professional, consumer and other associations and associations. The needs for procreation, health, raising children, spiritual improvement and faith, information, communication, sex, etc. are realized by a complex of sociocultural relations, including religious, family, marriage, ethnic and other interactions. They form the second level of interpersonal relationships and take place within the framework of such institutions as the family, the church, educational and scientific institutions, creative unions, and sports societies.

Finally, the third, highest level of interpersonal relations is the need for political participation, which is associated with individual choice based on political preferences and value orientations. This level presupposes the formation of specific political positions in the individual. Political preferences of individuals and groups are realized with the help of interest groups, political parties, movements.

If we consider modern civil society in developed countries, then it will appear as a society consisting of many independently acting groups of people with different orientations. Thus, the structure of civil society in the United States is an all-encompassing network of various voluntary associations of citizens, lobby groups, municipal communes, charitable foundations, interest clubs, creative and cooperative associations, consumer, sports and other societies, religious, public - political and other organizations and unions, reflecting a wide variety of social interests in the industrial, political, spiritual spheres, personal and family life.

These independent and independent of the state socio-political institutions sometimes tensely oppose each other, fighting for the trust of citizens, sharply criticize and expose social evil in politics, economics, morality, in public life and in production. At one time, A. Tocqueville named the presence of an extensive system of civil society institutions as one of the features of the United States, which became the guarantor of the stability of American democracy.

1.3. Characteristics of civil society.

The legal nature of civil society, its compliance with the highest requirements of justice and freedom is the first most important qualitative characteristic of such a society. This feature of civil society is embodied in the normative requirements inherent in the content of the categories of justice and freedom. Freedom and justice are, in a civil society, a social factor that regulates (regulates) the activities of people, teams and organizations. On the other hand, the person himself, as a member of civil society, acquires freedom as a result of his ability to obey the normative requirements of freedom as a recognized necessity.

The second qualitative characteristic of civil society is functional. It is connected with the fact that the basis for the functioning of such a society is not just the creation of a certain field (space) for the realization of private interests, formally legally independent of state power, but the achievement of a high level of self-organization, self-regulation of society. The main functions of establishing joint activities of members of civil society in certain areas (entrepreneurship and other forms of economic activity, family relations, personal life, etc.) should be carried out in this case not with the help of tools and means standing above by the society of state power as a “special public authority”, and by the society itself on a truly democratic, self-governing basis, and in the sphere of a market economy, primarily on the basis of economic self-regulation. In this regard, the new functional characteristic of civil society is not that the state "generously yields" a certain area of ​​private interests to society itself, leaving it at the mercy of the solution of certain problems. On the contrary, the society itself, reaching a new level of its development, acquires the ability to independently, without the intervention of the state, to carry out the corresponding functions. And in this part, it is no longer the state that absorbs society, establishing total state forms leadership and control over the development of the relevant areas, but the reverse process of absorption of the state by civil society takes place: there arises (at least in these areas of "civil life") the primacy of civil society over the state.

In accordance with this, one can single out the third qualitative feature of civil society, which characterizes its highest values ​​and the main goal of functioning. Unlike the initial ideas about civil society, based on the absolutization of private interests (their main carriers, of course, are private owners), the modern general democratic concept of a post-industrial civil society should be based on the recognition of the need to ensure optimal, harmonious combination of private and public interests.

Freedom, human rights and his private interests should be considered in this case not from the standpoint of the egoistic essence of the “economic man”, for whom freedom is property, but, on the contrary, property itself in all its diversity of forms becomes a means of affirming ideals liberated person. And this should take place on the basis of unconditional recognition as the highest value of civil society of a person, his life and health, honor and dignity of a politically free and economically independent person.

In accordance with this, one should also approach the definition of the main goal of the functioning of modern civil society. The main goal is to satisfy the material and spiritual needs of a person, to create conditions that ensure a decent life and free development of a person. And the state in this case (under the conditions of a legal civil society) inevitably acquires the character of a welfare state. It's about about the enrichment of the nature of the state with social principles, which to a large extent transform its power functions. By asserting itself as a social state, the state refuses the role of a “night watchman” and takes responsibility for the sociocultural and spiritual development society.

Taking into account the noted qualitative characteristics, it is possible to define the concept of civil society as a system of socio-economic and political relations based on self-organization, functioning in the legal regime of social justice, freedom, satisfaction of the material and spiritual needs of a person as the highest value of civil society.

The foundations of civil society in the economic sphere are a diversified economy, various forms of ownership, regulated market relations; in the political sphere - decentralization of power, separation of powers, political pluralism, citizens' access to participation in state and public affairs, the rule of law and the equality of all before it; in the spiritual sphere - the absence of a monopoly of one ideology and worldview, freedom of conscience, civilization, high spirituality and morality.

2. Conditions for the emergence and functioning of civil society

2.1. Structure and basic elements.

Modern civil society has the following structure:

1. Voluntarily formed primary communities of people (family, cooperation, association, economic corporations, public organizations, professional, creative, sports, ethnic, confessional and other associations).

2. The totality of non-state non-political relations in society: economic, social, family, spiritual, moral, religious and others: this is the production and private life of people, their customs, traditions, mores.

3. The sphere of self-manifestation of free individuals and their organizations, protected by laws from direct interference in it by the state authorities.

Thus, the structure of civil society in developed countries is a wide network of social relations, various voluntary organizations of citizens, their associations, lobbying and other groups, municipal communes, charitable foundations, interest clubs, creative, cooperative associations, consumer, sports societies, socio-political, religious and other organizations and unions. All of them express the most diverse social interests in all spheres of society.

From this follows a concrete analysis of the main elements of civil society.

Firstly, economic organization civil society is a society of civilized market relations. The market as a kind of "component" of economic freedom is impossible without the development of independent entrepreneurial activity aimed at systematic profit.

The second structural element of civil society is its social organization. In market conditions, it is of a very complex nature, which primarily reflects the differences between individual social groups. Three main groups of the population of civil society can be distinguished: employees, entrepreneurs and disabled citizens. Ensuring a balanced balance of economic interests and material capabilities of these groups is an important direction of social policy.

Employees need to create economic, social and legal conditions for efficient work, fair pay for their work, and broad participation in profits.

Entrepreneurs should be subject to measures aimed at guaranteeing them the freedom of all forms economic activity, to stimulate their investment in the development of efficient, profitable production of goods and services. As for disabled citizens, they should be provided with targeted social protection, social security and service standards should be defined that will allow them to maintain an acceptable standard of living.

The third structural element of civil society is its socio-political organization. It cannot be identified with a state-political organization, with public administration society. On the contrary, the real democracy of civil society as the basis for ensuring the real freedom of the individual becomes possible precisely when society, acquiring the qualities of civil, legal, develops its own, non-state socio-political mechanisms of self-regulation and self-organization. In accordance with this, the so-called political institutionalization of civil society takes place, that is, society organizes itself with the help of such institutions as political parties, mass movements, trade unions, women's, veterans, youth, religious organizations, voluntary societies, creative unions, fraternities, foundations, associations and other voluntary associations of citizens created on the basis of their common political, professional, cultural and other interests. An important constitutional basis for the political institutionalization of civil society is the principle of political and ideological pluralism, a multi-party system. Civil society is alien to political and ideological monopolism, which suppresses dissent and does not allow any other ideology, except for the official, state, no other party than the ruling one - the “party of power”. An important condition for ensuring political and ideological pluralism, and, consequently, the institutionalization of civil society, is the freedom to organize and operate the media.

This, however, does not mean the identity of individual freedom and the legal status of a citizen. Freedom, as already noted, has such a property as normativity. From this it follows, on the one hand, that a person acquires freedom as a result of his ability to obey its normative requirements (obligatory rules of conduct). On the other hand, this means that the external form of the existence of individual freedom is social norms that determine the measure, the permissible boundaries of freedom. And only in the most important areas, which have an increased significance for society or for the individual himself, the measure of freedom determines, normalizes the state itself. This is done with the help of legal norms, laws. Laws, if they are of a legal nature, are in this respect, according to Marx, "the bible of freedom." The main legal means of consolidating, recognizing by the state the achieved freedom of the individual is the constitution.

At the same time, the rights and freedoms themselves, including constitutional ones, on the one hand, are determined by the level of development of civil society, the maturity of its economic, social, socio-political organization; after all, civil society is a social environment where most of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen are realized. On the other hand, the development and deepening of the most important characteristics of civil society as a legal, democratic society, as a society of genuine freedom and social justice largely depend on the fullness of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen, the degree of their guarantee, the sequence of implementation . In this regard, human and citizen's rights are a tool for the self-development of civil society, its self-organization. This dual relationship finds its consolidation at the state-legal, legal level, when the Constitution and other laws establish the responsibility not only of a citizen to the state, but also of the state to the individual.

2.2. Functions of civil society.

The main function of civil society is the most complete satisfaction of the material, social and spiritual needs of its members. A variety of economic, ethnic, regional, professional, religious associations of citizens are designed to promote the comprehensive realization by the individual of his interests, aspirations, goals, etc.

As part of this main function, civil society performs a number of important social functions:

1. On the basis of legality, it ensures the protection of private spheres of human and citizen's life from unreasonable strict regulation of the state and other political structures.

2. On the basis of civil society associations, mechanisms of public self-government are created and developed.

3. Civil society is one of the most important and powerful levers in the system of "checks and balances", the desire of political power for absolute domination. It protects citizens and their associations from unlawful interference in their activities by state power and thereby contributes to the formation and strengthening of the democratic bodies of the state, its entire political system. To perform this function, he has a lot of means: active participation in election campaigns and referendums, protests or support for certain demands, great opportunities in shaping public opinion, in particular, with the help of independent media and communications.

4. Institutions and organizations of civil society are called upon to provide real guarantees for the rights and victories of a person, equal access to participation in state and public affairs.

5. Civil society also performs the function of social control in relation to its members. It is independent of the state, has the means and sanctions by which it can force individuals to comply with social norms, ensure the socialization and education of citizens.

6. Civil society also performs a communication function. In a democratic society, a diversity of interests is manifested. The widest range of these interests is the result of the freedoms that a citizen has in a democracy. A democratic state is designed to satisfy the interests and needs of its citizens as much as possible. However, in the conditions of economic pluralism, these interests are so numerous, so diverse and differentiated that the state power has practically no channels of information about all these interests. The task of the institutions and organizations of civil society is to inform the state about the concrete interests of citizens, the satisfaction of which is possible only by the forces of the state.

7. Civil society performs a stabilizing function through its institutions and organizations. It creates strong structures on which all social life rests. In difficult historical periods (wars, crises, depressions), when the state begins to stagger, it "turns its shoulder" - strong structures of civil society.

One of the functions of civil society is also to provide a certain minimum level of necessary means of subsistence for all members of society, especially those who cannot achieve this themselves (the disabled, the elderly, the sick, etc.).

2.3. Forms of interaction between the state and civil society

The transition from a traditional, feudal society to a civil society, essentially bourgeois, meant the emergence of a citizen as an independent social and political entity with inalienable rights and obligations. The development of horizontal non-powerful social ties formed by autonomous associations of citizens ran into opposition from the centralized state. However, the state was forced not only to reckon with the emerging associations of citizens, but also to embark on the path of legal regulation of relations with the population, to significantly rebuild its own power structures.

Not in all countries, the conflict between civil society and the state, which in some cases resulted in clashes between the parliament as a body of the people representation and royal power about their political role and scope of authority, was allowed by the establishment of the constitutional and legal principles of their relationship. This struggle was a reflection of the ongoing search for specific political and organizational forms to ensure stable and moderate government, in which the distribution of political power in society would be balanced.

The transition from absolutist-monarchist rule to democracy began, as a rule, with the subordination of the state and civil society to legal norms, with the introduction of the principle of separation of powers, which constitute a single system of constitutionalism. Constitutionalism, as a political and legal principle, has different interpretation probably due to its long evolution. According to the classical legal definition, constitutionalism, like parliamentarism and absolutism, is a specific form of government. Absolutism is a form of state in which all power is concentrated in the monarch. In this sense, constitutionalism opposes absolutism as a form of the rule of law, in which relations between the state and civil society are regulated by legal norms.

The nature of the relationship between the people's representation (parliament) and the government (executive power) depends on the dominance of either the principle of parliamentarism or the principle of constitutionalism in the mechanism of power. Parliamentarianism means the dependence of the government on the decisions of parliament. Constitutionalism presupposes the independence of the government from the will of Parliament. An example of such a distribution of power is the system of ministerial government within a constitutional monarchy. In this case, the translation of a particular line of policy is the responsibility of a minister appointed by and accountable to the monarch. The formal legal side of constitutionalism means the presence in society of the basic law of the state (constitution), which determines the representation of the people, the division and scope of powers of various branches of government and guarantees the rights of citizens.

According to the method of emergence, determined by the correlation of political forces (progressive and traditionalist, reactionary), constitutionalism can be of a contractual nature, i.e., be the result of mutual agreement between society and the state, or oktroirovannyy, i.e. "go down" from above -state. In the second case, the monarch “grants” society a constitution, deliberately limiting his own powers, renouncing them in favor of the government and parliament.

Contractual constitutionalism prevailed in the countries of classical, chaotic modernization, where the processes of formation of civil society and the rule of law went in parallel and gradually. These processes had economic, social and cultural prerequisites and naturally formed the social structure of civil society represented by the middle class (small merchants, entrepreneurs, artisans, farmers, freelancers, etc.), ensured the economic dominance of the bourgeoisie. Then the economic domination of the bourgeoisie through the revolution was supplemented by a political one - the transfer of power into its hands. In the process of modernization, the state and civil society closely interact.

Octroized constitutionalism characteristic of countries with delayed modernization, in which there are no prerequisites (economic, social, cultural, legal) for the transition from traditional to civil society. Thus, the absence of a mature middle class leads to the fact that reforms can be carried out by a part of the liberal bourgeoisie in alliance with an enlightened bureaucracy and with the use of state institutions. The catching-up type of development of such countries requires the intensification of the process of transformation, the use of authoritarian methods of modernization. This leads to constant conflicts between the state and civil society.

The choice of specific political forms of transition from absolutism to democracy, during which the ratio of the state and civil society changed, in addition to historical, national features, was due to the struggle of three political forces: royal power, popular representation (parliament) and government bureaucracy. The maturity of civil society, expressed in the presence of an extensive party system capable of expressing the interests of citizens in parliament, limited the power of the monarch. However, the process of rationalization of managerial activity significantly increased the role of the bureaucracy. Practically, all executive power passed to her, and the monarch only formally remained its pinnacle.

Based on this, the distribution of powers between the three political forces determined the choice of political form government, which was to replace ab-solutism. Naturally, a long period of absolutist-monarchist rule formed political traditions that influenced the choice of political organization. It is no coincidence that the political modernization of absolutist regimes in most Western countries, with the exception of the United States, gave rise to a mixed form - a constitutional monarchy. However, the share and volume of political dominance in the mechanisms of power of the king, parliament and government bureaucracy are different. They were determined by the nature of the political coalition favored by these forces. The orientation of the interests of the coalition members determined the type of regime.

The first the type of regime within the framework of a constitutional monarchy - a parliamentary monarchy - was given by the English revolution. It was the result of a coalition of an all-powerful parliament and a powerless monarch. England was the first to implement the classical version of the political system of constitutionalism. Its meaning was the transfer of real power from the monarch to the government and the prime minister, who are completely dependent on the parliament. A feature of British constitutionalism is the absence of a written constitution and the presence of special means of regulating relations between the legislative and executive powers by means of customary legal precedents.

Most of the countries of Western Europe tried to transfer the English version into their societies. However, the presence of two opposing political streams - the republican-democratic one, which strove to establish the principle of popular sovereignty, and the absolutist-monarchist one, which preferred the preservation of the royal authorities, did not allow to reproduce the English system. As a result, a constitutional monarchy was established there in a dualistic form. This meant the emergence of an independent legislative power in the person of parliament, but with the preservation of legislative and executive functions for the monarch (the king remained the head of the executive branch, supreme commander and chief arbiter). The presence of monarchical and representative power created a system of checks and balances, which, however, was not stable due to the cultural and political heterogeneity of society. The political coalition of the monarch and the bureaucracy against parliament produced a third type of constitutional monarchy, called monarchical constitutionalism. If the English version of political modernization meant changing the essence and goals of the political order while maintaining traditional institutions, then with this version the essence of government remained the same, and only political institutions were transformed. This version of political modernization was the personification of imaginary constitutionalism. The constitutions granted by the monarchs were only the legalization of the traditional holders of power. The establishment of imaginary constitutionalism in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, in Russia was a consequence of the immaturity of civil society.

As the political history of world democracy has shown, the activity of public associations and the growth of their members are primarily facilitated by the following structural factors: raising the educational level of the population; development of public communications; periods of increased political protest, attracting new recruits to social associations; the reaction of the public to the newly put forward government reform programs, etc.

At the same time, the age-old difficulties of the formation and development of civil society are not only the activity of the state, the desire of the ruling elites to strengthen their positions in society and even exceed their own powers. A serious danger to the formation and existence of civil society is also the activity of various kinds of corporate-bureaucratic structures within the state, which invariably belittle the status of citizens' self-active activity and seek to strengthen state guardianship over it. Independent and extremely important reasons for the weakening of the positions of civil society are the lack of clarity for the population of the values ​​of social self-activity, the lack of commitment of public opinion to the values ​​of the ideology of human rights. Therefore, civil society does not arise where people do not fight for their rights and freedoms, where there are no traditions of critical analysis by the public of the activities of the authorities, and, finally, where political freedoms are perceived by people as self-will and lack of responsibility for their actions.

3. The principle of the primacy of the individual

3.1. Origin of the principle.

Let us turn to the liberal-democratic principle "not man for society, but society for man." If we understand it literally, then any moral virtues from absolute ones will certainly turn into relative ones: they oblige the individual only to the extent that they are useful to him personally. Moreover, this principle excludes such recognized types of civic duty as, for example, the defense of the Fatherland.

Consequently, this principle is not real, but normative-ideal: it allows you to defend the dignity of the individual in front of society and assert its civil sovereignty. The latter is revealed in the principle of a civil contract, which assumes that people enter into relations between themselves and the state to the extent that they find it acceptable and expedient for themselves. The principle of a civil contract means that no one can force anyone into those long-term social relations and agreements; they are valid for a person only to the extent that he voluntarily accepted them as a subject of equal contractual relations.

Secondly, this principle means an apology for the so-called natural state: if a person is left to his own nature, not re-educated, not to force his will, then in all respects the results will be better than under the opposite conditions.

The principle of the state of nature has a purely normative meaning: it is that ideal assumption, without which it is impossible to justify the autonomy of the individual in the face of society and his civil dignity.

The normative assumption, which became the basis of Western democracies, reflected the social worldview and the status of one particular estate - the third. It was this particular and specific attitude that was destined to become a civilized norm, which the West demonstrates and propagates as "natural", i.e. universal.

But along with this estate experience, the national historical experience of Western countries also influenced the adoption of this principle. Contrary to the notions of the naturalness of the principle itself and its organic peculiarity to Western man and Western culture, historical experience shows that it was rather a difficult and problematic choice. On the one hand, the problem was to stop the endless civil strife and wars at the cost of ceding local and individual rights and freedoms to a despotic-centralized state, capable of bringing peace and order with an iron fist. On the other hand, the problem was to avoid the abuses of this state itself in the form of encroachments by unrestrained and uncontrolled political despotism on a person's life, his personal well-being and dignity.

3.2. The modern political embodiment of the principle.

The individual principle with all the postulates that follow from it means the primacy of civil society in relation to the state. Civil status is based on exchange relations between sovereign and equal individuals. At the same time, such a state is recognized as normal when equal in rights and free citizens satisfy all their needs without exception in the course of a partner exchange - according to the principle "you - to me, I - to you." That is, citizens do not need the state to provide certain benefits - they satisfy their needs on the basis of the principle of individual self-activity.

The main paradox of modern Western democracy is that it assumes a non-political way of life for the majority of citizens and is therefore called representative. Classical ancient democracy Ancient Greece and Rome was a participatory democracy. It really united the citizens of the policy, jointly participating in solving the main issues of the life of their city-state.

That is, we are talking about a choice: either complete freedom is established privacy at the cost of losing personal participation in solving public affairs entrusted to certain persons - professionals in the field of politics, or citizens directly solve common collective issues. But then they no longer have the time or even the right to privacy.

For the man of the ancient polis, the state was not a monster hanging "from above": he himself was both a full-fledged amateur participant and the embodiment of all his decisions. It was in modern times that two poles arose in Europe: on the one hand, a concrete person who performs in all the variety of social roles, but at the same time is not equal with others, often suffering from exploitation and inequality, and on the other, an abstract a citizen of the state, having equal rights, but at the same time socially empty, removed from the needs and concerns of everyday life. This provision is called formal freedoms and formal democracy.

Modern society has separated amateur and political ways of life, everyday authoritarianism and formal democracy. In everyday civil life, an amateur-individualistic way of life is mainly led by the entrepreneurial minority, while the lives of the rest are at the mercy of the non-political authoritarianism of the real masters of life - production managers and company owners. On the contrary, in political terms, all citizens are recognized as equal, but this equality does not affect their meaningful everyday roles, but only the right to come to the polls every few years.

It must be said that the consumerism of representative democracy, which forces most people to accept the anti-democratism of civil life in exchange for high wages and technical comfort, is not limited to the material side itself. The point is also that a private, socially passive way of life has become a kind of habit and even a value of modern consumer society. The citizen, who in everyday life lays aside the affairs and cares of citizenship, enjoys his non-participation - the fact that "competent persons" relieve him of the responsibility associated with making everyday social decisions. Many people value their right not to participate in decisions as much as others value their right to participate. Where exactly modern trends are leading, which of these varieties of citizens is growing faster, remains debatable.

Participatory democracy requires such mobilization outside professional life, such tension and responsibility, which are not always psychologically acceptable for people.

Another functional property of the principle of the primacy of the individual, which makes it indispensable in the system of representative democracy, is its ex-group character.

If people voted in elections as stable members of certain social communities, then the distribution of votes of voters in general terms would be known in advance (on the basis of the numerical ratio of the corresponding groups of society), and in this case, elections as a procedure of the open will of the majority would be generally superfluous. The whole system of pre-election manipulation, agitation and propaganda proceeds from the fact that the ties of individuals with the respective groups are not stable, so voters can be lured away by getting their votes.

At the same time, without a minimum of inter-group mobility, society would be, in essence, estate or even caste, and the nation, in turn, could not acquire stable unity and identity.

3.3. Principle costs.

AT modern political science there is such a thing as G. Bakker's paradigm. Bakker is a representative of the Chi-Kag school, who received Nobel Prize for the work "Human Capital" (1964). As a follower of the liberal tradition, Bakker proceeds from the fact that the sphere of power-political relations will continuously narrow, giving way to relations of civil partnership exchange.

Literally, he interprets all social relations as economic, connected with the expectations of the maximum possible economic return on invested capital. Becker applies the economic law of saving time not only to the sphere of production, but also to the sphere of consumption; it is this device that allows him to declare economic theory universal, explaining all human relations without exception.

According to Becker, just as the law of shortening the time of production of goods operates in the sphere of production, so the law of reduction of the time for satisfying needs operates in the sphere of consumption. Therefore, modern man prefers to buy a refrigerator and store food in it instead of cooking every day, he prefers to invite friends to a restaurant instead of taking them at home, and so on. Actually, the modern consumer society is described as a society that by all means saves consumption time, which means a steady depreciation of those areas of life and human relations that are fraught with unnecessary waste of time.

Why is the birth rate falling in modern society? Bakker explains this by the law of marginal utility. Children in a traditional society, firstly, quickly got on their feet, and secondly, they remained in the family as assistants to their father and mother. Therefore, the well-known love of children of traditional societies, in fact, Bekker believes, is an economically rational behavior, because in reality we are talking about children as capital, which gave a quick and significant return. Since in modern society children do not soon become independent and there is now no hope for them as breadwinners in old age, modern economic man prefers to have little or no children at all.

In the theories of the Chicago school, it is not politics that recedes before the economy, but society recedes before the world of commerce. The Chicago School doesn't just free civil society from the world of politics; it liberates civil relations from everything that was in them both civil, and intimate-personal, and moral, and spiritual. If Marx's theory at one time subordinated everything to production relations, then the Chicago school subordinates everything to exchange relations and declares the consumer to be the type in front of which all higher spheres, values ​​and relations should be humbled.

The second drawback of the libertarian interpretation of civil society is the attitude towards the socially unprotected - all those who have nothing to offer within the framework of equivalent exchange relations. No one can deny that as liberalism as a new great doctrine has triumphantly marched through the world, the attitude towards the socially unprotected has noticeably worsened.

The liberal theory considers culture, education, qualifications, developed intellect, professional ethics not valuable in themselves, not as a prerequisite for a civilized existence, but as a means of immediate market return and benefit.

What kind of society can result from the consistent social application of this theory? A society in which the best - not only in the proper spiritual and moral, but also in the professional and intellectual sense - retreat before the worst, the higher dimensions of human existence before the lower, so that the market society gradually slides towards a pre-civilized state, to wildness. Even if we push aside the proper spiritual criteria of progress, leaving only the material and practical ones, then even then we have to admit that the Chicago theory does not meet its criteria, because the mechanisms developed by it consistently reject everything developed and highly complex in favor of the primitive and one-dimensional . It is the professional and social groups that are leading by the usual sociological criteria that are shrinking and losing their status, giving way to the primitive predators of the market.

Bakker is also credited with the discovery that predetermined the transition from the theory of industrial society to the theory of post-industrial society. We are talking about human capital as the main form of social wealth. In a post-industrial society, the importance of non-material sources of social wealth, primarily related to the human factor, increases. Bakker was one of the first to theoretically prove and substantiate mathematically that profitable investments in science, education, health care, comfort and hygiene systems give several times higher economic returns than investments in internal production factors familiar to capitalism.

In general, we can conclude that the main shortcoming of modern liberal theory is the same as that of Marxism - it assumes that such factors of social life are economically assessable and calculable, which have a stochastic, indefinite character in relation to their own economic use.

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The state and law are a product of the development of society. This explains their interrelation and interdependence. Each of these concepts has distinctive features. Throughout the history of the development of civilization, the best minds of mankind, by virtue of the era they are experiencing, have tried, in the form of teachings or practical activities, to create a society of justice and equal opportunities. The world experience of revolutions, social discoveries, democracy, new systems of social management - accumulated literally bit by bit. Its reasonable use, taking into account systemic conditions in the form of state forms and national systems of law, is the guarantor of the constant progress of mankind in the present and future.

However, as noted by V.V. Putin "we will not be able to solve any of the urgent tasks facing our country without ensuring the rights and freedoms of citizens, without the effective organization of the state itself, without the development of democracy and civil society."

YES. Medvedev, while in office of the President of the Russian Federation, also considered “creating conditions for the development of civil society” as one of the tasks of the state.

Thus, one of the goals of the Russian reforms is to build a civil society. But few people can really explain what it is. The idea put forward sounds attractive, but is unclear to the vast majority of the population, including officials of the state apparatus.

N.I. Matuzov notes that “behind the epithet “civil”, despite its conventionality, there is an extensive and rich content. The meaning of this phenomenon is multifaceted and ambiguous, it is interpreted by scientists in different ways.

The purpose of this control work is the study of the basic concepts of civil society and the analysis of its state in modern Russia.

Based on the goal, the tasks of the work are:

Studying the basic concepts of civil society;

Consideration of the concept of "civil society" on present stage development of the theory of state and law;

Identification of problems and trends in the formation of civil society in modern Russia.

The work consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion and a bibliography.

1. Basic concepts of civil society

1.1. Concepts of civil society in antiquity and the Middle Ages

In ancient philosophical thought, the category of "civil society" first appears in Cicero, but it seems possible to distinguish it within the texts of Plato and Aristotle. The ideas expressed in antiquity formed the basis for all subsequent concepts, which in essence are their development, systematization or criticism.

In the “State” of Plato, a division of the categories “private” and “public” appears, referring to the family and the state, respectively. Nevertheless, in Plato's model, society, the state and civil society are united, civil society is inseparable from both the state and the pre-state state of society. At the same time, it acts not as a kind of “link”, not as a property acquired over time, but as an essential condition for the existence of a community of people. Thus, "civil society" is identified with society in its modern sense and the foundation is laid for its separation from the state.

Aristotle's "Politics" confirms the separation of "family" and "society", formally equating the latter with the "state", but at the same time leaving the possibility of interpretation. The family is the “primary cell of society”, subordinate to the state and at the same time the purpose of its existence. The state is defined as "an association of equal citizens living in a polis", or as "a society formed from several villages", which formed the pre-Enlightenment idea that the state consists of several societies identified with cities. Aristotle calls private property the basis of society and the state, and its protection is the goal. According to Aristotle, civil society is a society of citizens, that is, there is no difference between society and civil society.

In "On the State" of Cicero, in addition to the classical formulations of the key concepts for civil society (citizen, legal state, private property), he proposed the terms "civil community" and "civil society". Developing the ideas of Plato and Aristotle, Cicero captures the emergence of a "civil community" with the advent of interpersonal communication, and this process does not necessarily coincide with the emergence of the state and the status of a citizen in a person who is a member of a civil community. Following Aristotle, the "civil community" is also understood as the city-state, while the state is a collection of cities. According to Cicero, the state is a thing that is in use by the civil community. Thus, for the first time, the "civil community" (in modern transcription - civil society) is separated from the state and called the fundamental principle, and the state is only a superstructure. The concepts of "society of citizens" and "civil society" characterize a society in which the law serves as a public regulator and a link between its members, that is, as a synonym for "rule of law". Thus, the basis for the separation of "civil society" from "society" was created. The concept of Cicero is the highest stage in the development of ancient state thought.

In the Middle Ages, "civil society" did not attract the attention of scholars, being limited to fragmentary statements, as a rule, borrowed from ancient texts. Thus, A. Augustine in "The City of God" writes about "civil society" as an association higher than the family, a set of families, all of which are citizens. Aristotle's thoughts are repeated that the state is an association of cities, and the city is a civil society. The main contribution of the Middle Ages to the theory of civil society was the humanistic ideas of freedom and their dissemination in the minds of people. Augustine considers virtue to be the driving force of civil society, the condition for its viability is the harmony and proportionality of the groups of people included in it. "Society" from "civil society" is still not separated.

1.2. Concepts of civil society of modern times

In modern times, T. Hobbes, D. Locke and J. Rousseau formulated and finally separated from the state the concept of "civil society" as a system that ensures the realization of individual rights. The concepts of this time repeat each other, therefore we will consider in detail only the classical theory of D. Locke.

In "On Two Types of Government" D. Locke considered civil society as a sphere opposed to the natural state of things. The goal of civil society is the preservation of property, civil society exists where and only where each of its members has renounced the natural, traditional power, transferring it into the hands of society. Thus, civil society is opposed and even antagonistic to the state of nature, i.e. traditions.

Since J. Locke proceeded from the contractual theory of the origin of the state, he justified the right of the people to resist the state in the event that it neglects its rights and interests. He argued that by concluding a social contract, the state receives from people exactly as much power as is necessary and sufficient to achieve the main goal. political community- creating conditions so that everyone can ensure their civil interests, and cannot encroach on natural human rights - life, freedom, property, etc.

Although J. Locke did not yet distinguish between society and the state, his distinction between the rights of the individual and the rights of the state was of great importance for the formation of the modern concept of civil society.

1.3. Concepts of civil society by Hegel and Marx

According to Hegel, civil society is primarily a system of needs based on private property, as well as religion, family, estates, government, law, morality, duty, culture, education, laws and the mutual legal relations of subjects arising from them.

From a natural, uncultured state, people must enter into civil society, for only in the latter do legal relations have validity.

Hegel wrote: "Civil society has been created, however, only in the modern world...". In other words, civil society was opposed to savagery, underdevelopment, and uncivilization. And by it was meant, of course, the classical bourgeois society.

The main element in Hegel's doctrine of civil society is a person - his role, functions, position. According to Hegelian views, the individual is a goal for himself; its activities are aimed primarily at satisfying their own needs (natural and social). In this sense, she represents a kind of egoistic individual. At the same time, a person can satisfy his needs only by being in certain relationships with other people. “In civil society, everyone is a goal for himself, everything else is nothing for him. However, without a relationship with others, he cannot achieve his goals in their entirety.

The importance of relationships between subjects is also emphasized by Hegel in property relations: “Most property in civil society rests on a contract, the formalities of which are firmly defined.”

Thus, Hegel put an end to the distinction between the three main social forms: the family, civil society and the state.

Civil society in the interpretation of Hegel is a system of needs mediated by labor, based on the domination of private property and the general formal equality of people. Civil society and the state are independent but interacting institutions. Civil society together with the family constitute the basis of the state. In the state, the general will of the citizens is represented. Civil society is a sphere of special, private interests of separate individuals.

From the Hegelian concept came the ideas of K. Marx, who understands civil society as a form of economic relations adequate to a certain level of development of the productive forces. The family and civil society are the driving forces that transform themselves into a state.

Marx in his early works quite often used the concept of civil society, denoting the organization of the family, estates, classes, property, distribution, the real life of people, emphasizing their historically determined nature, determined by economic and other factors.

K. Marx and F. Engels saw the basic principle of the materialistic understanding of history “in the fact that, proceeding from the material production of immediate life, consider the actual process of production and understand the form of communication associated with this mode of production and generated by it - i.e. civil society at its various stages - as the basis of all history; then it is necessary to depict the activities of civil society in the sphere of public life, and also to explain from it all the various theoretical generations and forms of consciousness, religion, philosophy, morality, etc. and trace the process of their emergence on this basis.

Civil society, according to Marx, covers all the material communication of individuals within a certain stage of development of the productive forces. This "material communication" includes the entire spectrum of market relations: private enterprise, business, commerce, profit, competition, production and distribution, capital flows, economic incentives and interests. All this has a certain autonomy, is characterized by its internal connections and patterns.

Critically analyzing human rights, K. Marx pointed out that they are nothing but the rights of a member of civil society. Among them, K. Marx, like G. Hegel, emphasizes the right to individual freedom. This individual freedom, as well as the enjoyment of it, form the basis of civil society. In civil society, each individual is a certain closed complex of needs and exists for the other only insofar as they mutually become a means for each other.

1.4. Modern concepts of civil society

According to domestic researchers of civil society (N. Boichuk, A. Gramchuk, Y. Pasko, V. Skvorets, Yu. Uzun, A. Chuvardinskiy), the modern liberal model of civil society is most fully and systematically described by E. Gellner in “Conditions of Freedom. Civil Society and Its Historical Rivals (1994).

Consistently approaching the definition of civil society, Gellner gives him the following definitions: “... civil society is a combination of various non-governmental institutions that are strong enough to serve as a counterbalance to the state and, without interfering with it, play the role of peacemaker and arbiter between the main interest groups, restrain its desire to to the dominance and atomization of the rest of society". Civil society is what "denies both suffocating communalism and centralized authoritarianism."

Ultimately, Gellner states: “Civil society is based on the separation of politics from the economy and from the social sphere (that is, from civil society in the narrow sense of the word, which is a social residue obtained from the subtraction of the state as such), which is combined with the principle of non-intervention of those in power in social life» .

The separation of politics from economics, according to Gellner, distinguishes civil society from the traditionalist one. At the same time, the economic component is decentralized and prioritized, while the political component is vertical with centralized coercion. In contrast to the one-dimensionality and economic holism of Marxism, modern civil society is characterized by at least three-axis stratification - economic, political and cultural (social). The classic triad that characterizes modern society is confirmed: the economy of transnational capitalism, the ideology of neoliberalism and the electoral system of democracy. Following Aristotle, Locke and Hegel, the position on the right of private property as the basis of civil society is developing. It is based on the understanding of civil society as a form of production relations, first proposed by Marx. It can equally be argued that the basis of civil society is that sense of civic duty and tolerance, which is the basis of the modern type of person, which he called "modular".

Gellner believes that the essence of civil society lies in the formation of relationships that are effective and at the same time are flexible, specialized, instrumental. Indeed, a significant role here was played by the transition from status relationships to contractual relationships: people began to comply with the contract, even if it does not correlate in any way with a ritually formalized position in society or belonging to a particular social group. Such a society is still structured - it is not some kind of sluggish, atomized inert mass - but its structure is mobile and easily amenable to rational improvement. Answering the question of how institutions and associations can exist that balance the state and at the same time do not fetter their members, we must say: this is possible mainly due to the modularity of man.

Gellner associates civil society with a new type of mass consciousness, which he called "modular man" - capable of occupying positions in society other than those prescribed by the state.

The appearance of the "modular man", according to Gellner, became possible due to the spread of means of processing and transmitting information. In addition to the rejection of traditionalist monism, the “modular man” is inherently opposed to those changes that threaten his own existence.

The modern neo-liberal point of view on civil society, adapted to the current political situation, is well expressed by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe T. Hammarberg, who stated that in the post-Soviet space “the role of civil society in human rights projects and the protection of the fundamental values ​​and rights of minorities is extremely important” . Hammarberg also noted that civil society, neither in the CIS countries nor in Europe, has any mechanisms whatsoever that control its competence and formalize its legitimacy. Thus, modern Europe is interested in civil society solely as a means of controlling power.

The most important feature of the Western concept of civil society is organic compound this concept with the idea of ​​tolerance, which can be characterized by the following principles:

A truly tolerant person believes that everyone has the right to defend, with the help of rational arguments, his understanding of what is good for individuals, regardless of whether this understanding is true or false, and also to strive to convince others that he is right;

No tolerant person will tolerate actions that destroy the inner right of choice of himself and others;

Evil must be tolerated only in those cases where its suppression creates equal or greater obstacles to the goods of the same order, or obstacles to all goods of a higher order.

2. The concept of "civil society" at the present stage

The Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language gives the following definition of civil society: "a society of free and equal citizens, relations between which in the sphere of economy and culture develop independently of state power" .

However, there are no legislatively fixed definitions of civil society at the international and national levels, and there should not be, just as there cannot be a single approach to the concept of democracy.

So yes. Medvedev believes that “civil society is an integral institution of any state. Feedback Institute. An organization of people who are out of office, but actively participating in the life of the country. From this statement it follows that the degree of independence of society, as well as the degree of independence of the state, must necessarily be in a state of dynamic equilibrium, which provides for consideration of mutual interests.

For the emergence and development of civil society, it is necessary for the state to create real conditions for the population and opportunities for self-expression in the form of granting rights and freedoms, as well as guarantees (political, legal, organizational, economic, ideological and others) for their implementation.

A truly civil society can be considered such a community of people where the optimal ratio of all spheres of public life has been achieved: economic, political, social and spiritual.

With the existence of civil society, the state acts as a spokesman for the compromise of various forces in society. The economic basis of civil society is the right to private property. Otherwise, a situation is created when every citizen is forced to serve the state on the terms that the state power dictates to him.

In fact, the interests of minorities in civil society are expressed by various social, political, cultural and other unions, groups, blocs, parties. They can be both public and independent. This enables individuals to exercise their rights and obligations as citizens of a democratic society. Through participation in these organizations, political decision-making can be influenced in a variety of ways.

The generally recognized typical features of a highly developed civil society are:

The presence of property at the disposal of people (individual or collective ownership);

The presence of a developed structure of various associations, reflecting the diversity of interests of various groups and strata, a developed and ramified democracy;

A high level of intellectual, psychological development of members of society, their ability to self-activity when included in one or another institution of civil society;

The functioning of the rule of law.

Civil society includes the totality of interpersonal relations that develop outside the framework and without state intervention. It has a ramified system of public institutions independent of the state, realizing daily individual and collective needs.

In civil society, a single set of fundamental, axial principles, values, orientations is being developed that guides all members of society in their lives, no matter what place in public pyramid they didn't occupy. This complex, constantly improving and renewing, holds society together and determines the main characteristics of both its economic and political subsystems. Economic and political freedoms are considered a form of manifestation of the more fundamental freedom of a person as a member of society, as a valuable and self-sufficient person.

A.V. Melekhin notes: “Civil society can be imagined as a kind of social space in which people interact as individuals independent of each other and of the state. This is the sphere of social relations that exist outside, in addition to, and often in opposition to, more stringent rules established by the state in various areas.

The basis of civil society is a civilized, amateur, full-fledged individual, therefore, it is natural that the essence and quality of society depend on the quality of its constituent individuals. The formation of civil society is inextricably linked with the formation of the idea of ​​individual freedom, the self-worth of each individual.

The emergence of civil society led to the distinction between human rights and the rights of a citizen. Human rights are provided by civil society, and the rights of a citizen - by the state. It is obvious that the most important condition for the existence of civil society is a person who has the right to self-realization. It is affirmed through the recognition of the right of individual and personal freedom of each person.

Speaking about the signs indicating the existence of a civil society, it is necessary to take into account the following prerequisite: they must reflect the mentality of the population, the system of economic relations, morality and religion existing in society, and other behavioral factors.

Thus, civil society involves the active manifestation of the creative potential of the individual in all areas of social relations, and the main features of such a society are the economic, political and spiritual freedom of the individual.

The presence of private property contributes to the creation of financial and economic conditions for the formation of civil society structures that are autonomous in relation to state power.

The main political sign of a civil society is the functioning of a rule of law state in such a society. The rule of law, as researchers note, is actually the political hypostasis of civil society, correlating with each other as form and content. Their unity embodies the integrity of society as a system in which direct and feedback find a normal and progressive manifestation.

In the spiritual sphere, civil society is characterized by the priority of universal human values. One of the main ideals of civil society (as well as the rule of law) is the desire to create conditions for the most complete disclosure of the creative potential and intellect of a person. It is from here that the growing importance of the rights and freedoms of the individual stems.

3. The realities of the formation of civil society in modern Russia

Civil society has not been clearly reflected in the Russian Constitution, which does not even contain this term, although certain elements of civil society are still enshrined in it (private property, market economy, human rights, political pluralism, freedom of speech, multi-party system, etc.).

At the beginning of the XXI century. Russia tried to embark on the path of building a civil society. However, this process has now stopped.

Civil society, in contrast to political society with its vertical structures of hierarchical relationships, necessarily presupposes the existence of horizontal, powerless ties, the deep underlying basis of which is the production and reproduction of material life, the maintenance of the life of society. The functions of civil society are carried out by its structural elements - amateur and voluntary civil associations. It is in this kind of associations that a civil active person "maturing".

Until recently, civil movements in Russia experienced a real boom. More and more new professional, youth, ecological, cultural and other associations arose; however, their quantitative growth outpaced the qualitative growth. Some organizations appeared as a response to momentary problems (for example, unions of deceived depositors), others from the very beginning were openly biased political in nature (“Women of Russia”). Control over such associations by the state was greatly facilitated, and many of the civil initiatives, becoming the subject of political bargaining, lost their alternativeness and generally significant character. Thus, the main features of civil society were leveled: non-political nature and alternativeness to the political system.

YES. Medvedev in his Address Federal Assembly On December 22, 2011, he noted: “Our civil society has strengthened and become more influential, social activity has increased significantly public organizations, this was confirmed by the events recent weeks. I consider the increase in the activity of non-profit organizations one of the key achievements recent years. We have done a lot to support them, to develop and stimulate volunteerism in the country. And today there are more than 100 thousand non-profit organizations in our country. It has become easier to register them, and there have been significantly fewer inspections of the activities of NGOs. However, already in July 2012, the Federal Law of July 20, 2012 N 121-FZ “On Amendments to Certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation in terms of regulating the activities of non-profit organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent”, which served to strengthen control over non-profit organizations by the state.

Based on the concept of civil society, in parallel with its formation, the process of development of a legal democratic state should go on, when the individual and state power form equal subjects of law. The gradual development of the rule of law, which is a condition for the existence of a democratic system, contains not only the traditional division of power into three branches, but also a complementary division between civil society and the state. In this respect, the Russian state, burdened with authoritarian traits, can hardly be called legal and democratic. In Russia, all branches of state power inefficiently fulfill their role function, including the legislative one, constantly changing, or even not at all adopting the laws necessary for society.

According to the English political scientist R. Sakwa, the incomplete democratization in Russia has given rise to a kind of hybrid that combines democracy and authoritarianism, which he called the "regime system of government" . The regime system, by narrowing the role of parliament and the judiciary, was able to largely protect itself from the surprises of the electoral struggle and protect itself from the control of civil institutions. The interaction of the state with "society" under the regime system is based on the principle of domination and subservience. The structural elements of society here are a set of subjects who must be kept within the framework of social control by those in power.

Despite the fact that the majority of property has ceased to be state property, it is still used not very efficiently and not always in the interests of the state and society. The economic policy of the state has not yet consistently stimulated the formation of preconditions for an increase in the size of the middle class. Sufficiently high inflation, strong tax pressure limiting entrepreneurial activity, lack of developed private ownership of land - do not allow to make serious investments in production, in land, do not contribute to the formation of a mature citizen with inalienable rights and duties.

The basis of civil life is formed by enterprises of medium and small businesses. They are either absorbed by large financial-industrial groups merged with the state apparatus, or die under the influence of tax and financial pressure from state power. As a result, the competitive sector of the small economy is destroyed, and instead of the main principles of civil life (competition, individualization and cooperation), a monopoly of economic and political power is established. The most negative consequence of the decline in the regulatory function of the state in the economic sphere is the formation of a significant gap in the income level of a small group of people and the majority of the poor. In the conditions of modern Russia, in the presence of a huge budgetary sphere, when the only source of existence is wage, it is not yet necessary to talk about the mass character of civil relations.

The financial dictatorship makes the independent mass media more and more biased, so often the “voice” of civil society is almost not heard.

In addition, in its essence, civil society has an ethno-regional character. The gap in the degree of maturity and in the level of development of civil relations in different regions is too large (suffice it to compare, for example, life in megacities such as Moscow and existence in the outback of Primorsky Krai or Siberia).

The Russian elite is in a state of "dysfunctionality". While it is undeniable that there are many influential supporters of democratic functioning within the ruling political elite state institutions, today it is not able to aggregate the interests of even the active part of civil society.

One of the obstacles to the creation of Russian state civil society is a high level of corruption and crime. Widespread corruption has a negative impact on the acceptance by the population of the values ​​of democracy as a system of governing society.

CONCLUSION

The concept of "civil society" arose long before the formation of modern neo-liberal theories that serve as the basis for conventional rhetoric. The first concepts of the state, civic activity, self-organization of citizens and, ultimately, civil society appeared in antiquity. Elements of civil society are inherent in all existing public entities, starting from the ancient polis, and were present even in highly stratified communities. Therefore, the understanding of civil society as a modern Euro-Atlantic cultural phenomenon, which is actively introduced into the public consciousness with the help of the mass media, is very simplified and politicized.

The formation and development of civil society took several centuries. This process has not been completed either in our country or globally.

Laws designed to give the formation of civil society in the country a civilized character must comply with a certain set of necessary principles of interaction between society and the state, developed by world and domestic democratic theory and practice.

These include:

Ensuring human rights in full, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international legal norms;

Ensuring voluntary civil cooperation through freedom of association;

Ensuring a full-fledged public dialogue, ideological pluralism and tolerance for different views;

Legal protection of civil society and its structures;

Responsibility of the state to the citizen;

Conscious self-restraint of power.

The legal framework of civil society should be a system of meaningfully interconnected blocks of legislation reflecting the federal nature state structure Russia, the problems of relations between citizens and the state in the economic, social spheres and creating the legal basis for the activities of civil society institutions.

The degree of development of civil society institutions is also determined by the level of legal culture of the population, its readiness to observe the principle of legality in all spheres of public life.

Creation activities favorable conditions for the development of civil society in should be carried out by all subjects of the Federation, at any level of government. Only with the successful solution of the entire complex of the tasks listed above is it possible to move forward and, ultimately, to build a civil society in Russia. A prerequisite for this process should be the perception by citizens of the ideas and actions of the state.

However, at present in Russia there is no comprehensively developed unified concept for the protection of human rights and freedoms, which would be shared and supported by all branches of government, local governments, the media and society as a whole, and, accordingly, there is no civil society.

a type of society characterized by a high degree of self-determination of individuals and the presence of self-government in the form of various organizations and associations, due to which the rights of the individual in it are reliably protected, and the state serves as the protection and guarantor of these rights.

Great Definition

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SOCIETY CIVIL

certain societies. system, organization of the family, estates or classes, the official expression of which is political. system based on a developed system of civil law. Idea O.g. clearly insufficiently developed in modern sociological. theories, which is contrary to the needs of practice, with a fairly frequent appeal to O.g. political and societies. figures, all who are concerned about the fate of a person, improving the conditions of his life in modern world. Until now, that theoretical approach remains almost unclaimed. potential, which is assigned to the concept of O.g. in the history of sociology and philosophy. So, Aristotle refers to this concept in his works and gives him his own interpretation. Serious importance is attached to O.g. in the Hegelian conception of the development of history. It is Hegel who gives a relatively complete explanation of the need to remove a vast area of ​​societies from arbitrary control by states and structures. life - property ties, relationships and processes to ensure the freedom and independence of man in this area. In other words, Hegel breeds the concept of political. spheres and civil society, believing that the latter for a person is the sphere of free autonomy, protecting him from the encroachments of official institutionalized bodies. In this dilution, the anti-feudal inclination of the idea of ​​​​O.g. is clearly traced, which is caused by the need for theoretical means to "pave the way" for the bourgeois. societies. order, unthinkable without the freedom of the human commodity producer. The founders of Marxism, developing the idea of ​​O.G., proceeded from the premise that "liberation" is a historical. a business. They considered the problem of O.g. from a materialist standpoint. understanding of history, believing that the path to the liberation of man lies through the creation of highly developed productive forces, overcoming his alienation from the means of production, turning him into the owner of these means, establishing social. equality and fairness in human relations. As the events of the 20th century showed, the idea of ​​O.g. not only has it not become obsolete, but, on the contrary, has become unusually aggravated. There is a danger of human enslavement, and the source of this danger is the exorbitantly expanded power of political and state structures, their expansionist claims, which extend not only to the economic. relations, but also on all other spheres of human activity, including the field of spiritual culture. The repressiveness of these structures has a particularly hard effect on the lives of people in countries dominated by totalitarian regimes, an administrative-command order, where an authoritarian style of relations is formed between the holders of power and ordinary members of the society. On the relevance of the idea of ​​O.g. testify to the ongoing search in all civilized countries for optimal interaction between states., Societies. and actually economical. regulators of human behavior and activities. Sociologists, as well as representatives of other societies. sciences, are included in the work to determine a strategy that allows, in the words of Marx, "the reverse absorption of state power by the society, when its own living forces take the place of the forces that subjugate and enslave the society" (Marx K, Engels F. Op. T. 17. S. 548). But this "reverse absorption" is a long process. It includes the transformation of the economy, social. relations, reforms in the field of education, upbringing and culture; In general, it involves the involvement of the person himself in this process as a free-thinking and free-acting individual. Basically O.g. as a sphere of human initiative, it should be free from arbitrary interference by states and bodies. Lit .: Hegel G.W.F. Philosophy of law//Coll. T. 7. M., L., 1934; Marx K., Engels F. Feuerbach. The opposite of materialistic and idealistic views. New publication of the first chapter of The German Ideology. M., 1966. A.D. Naletov.

Great Definition

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